Unified travel interface

ABSTRACT

A travel booking system abstracts the user from a travel search of web and internet searches initiated by the user and the search result of those searches to present the user with a consistent interface for both entry and results. As part of the abstraction the search introduces elements of one or more traveller profiles to delineate the searches. The user may investigate the search results for a trip or alternate route options returned by a search to further direct the search or to book a search result.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The invention generally relates to the provision of a system for bookingtravel, travel management and travel booking monitoring for travel andfor associated products or services via the internet, whether by websiteor a hosted application.

More particularly the invention relates to the providing an assistant tothe booking process which will implement a provider independent uniforminterface for all aspects of the booking process including monitoringpost booking.

BACKGROUND ART

Booking travel, or items associated with travel such as accommodation,taxis, cars, restaurants, air travel, etc. is usually carried out via auser on an internet site or a booking agent using either an internetsite or a client interface to a hosted application. There is acontinuing trend for persons booking travel or other products orservices associated with travel to book themselves rather than to bookusing a travel agent, whether or not that agent provides access via theinternet. In booking travel usually an internet site handles just oneaspect of travel, for instance booking a rental car, although some siteswill handle booking an airline trip, accommodation at a destination anda rental car at the destination—but usually for just one airline orairline alliance, and for a limited range of accommodation sites andrental car companies.

Usually while doing this a user has to handle several differentinterfaces for the different modes of travel or accommodation and mayhave to deal with different interfaces for each different accommodationsite or rental company. There is the additional problem of usingwhatever loyalty or rewards scheme a particular company has created andeither claiming the reward for that part of a trip after the fact ortrying to do it while putting together what may be a complex trip.

This results in user frustration because it becomes a challenge to dealwith each different interface, to ensure that the service or productavailable is what is required, to make sure that dates and times of oneservice ties in with every other.

Additionally trying to manage or monitor the eventual travel andaccommodation bookings requires that the user return to the individualsites where the bookings were created.

The present invention provides a solution to this and other problemswhich offers advantages over the prior art or which will at leastprovide the public with a useful choice.

All references, including any patents or patent applications cited inthis specification are hereby incorporated by reference. No admission ismade that any reference constitutes prior art. The discussion of thereferences states what their authors assert, and the applicants reservethe right to challenge the accuracy and pertinency of the citeddocuments. It will be clearly understood that, although a number ofprior art publications are referred to herein, this reference does notconstitute an admission that any of these documents form part of thecommon general knowledge in the art, in New Zealand or in any othercountry.

A reference to an “ERP” is a reference to an Enterprise ResourcePlanning system including at least an accounting system and a corporatetravel planning system including itinerary planning and expenditurecapability.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

-   -   In one embodiment the invention consists in a travel booking        system for booking a trip by a traveller, the travel booking        system providing to the user a consistent interface for        receiving the travel phases of the travel origin, the travel        destination, any required waypoints between the two, any        required facilities at travel origin, at travel waypoints,        during travel between travel waypoints or at travel destination        and any time requirements of the travel phases; the travel        booking system responding to the travel phases and time and        facility requirements to query travel providers having disparate        interfaces and outputs and to provide at least one solution to        each phase of travel presenting to the user the at least one        solution for each phase in a consistent interface.    -   Preferably the travel booking system has access to a traveller        profile identifying established traveller requirements for        different required facilities and provides these as a filter to        the booking process.    -   Preferably where the user is a corporate user the travel booking        system has access to a corporate profile establishing corporate        requirements for different required facilities and provides        these as a filter to the booking process.    -   In an alternate embodiment the invention relates to a travel        booking system for receiving a travel request including        information on travel origins, travel destination, travel        waypoints; facilities required at origin, waypoints or        destinations and any required times at origin, destination or        waypoints, the travel booking system determining solutions for        each phase of the travel by searching disparate internet        connected sites, receiving solution data from the disparate        internet connected sites, resolving the data received from the        disparate sites to a consistent format and outputting the data        in a consistent format as one or more solutions to the travel        request.    -   Preferably wherein each of the travel requests includes a        weighting for each of the requirements, the weighting        determining the relevance of each requirement in the ordering of        the solutions.    -   In yet a further embodiment the invention relates to travel        booking equipment programmed to receive a travel request from a        user including information on travel origins, travel        destination, any travel waypoints; any facilities required at        origin, waypoints or destinations and any required specific        times at origin, destination or waypoints, the travel booking        equipment program determining solutions for each phase of the        travel by searching disparate internet connected sites,        receiving solution data from the disparate internet connected        sites, resolving the data received from the disparate sites to a        consistent format and outputting the data in a consistent format        to the user as one or more solutions to the travel request.    -   Preferably any travel request information from the user is        augmented by profile information relevant to the travel request        and stored in at least one profile store accessible to the        travel booking equipment.    -   Preferably profile information relevant to the travel request is        stored in at least one individual traveller profile.    -   Preferably an individual traveller profile is stored in a social        site profile.    -   Preferably profile information is stored in a corporate profile.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a general illustrative view of a normal travel bookingprocess.

FIG. 2 is a diagram of the procedures which combine to extractinformation for choosing travel and options.

FIG. 3 is a sector chart of a typical trip as booked by the process.

FIG. 4 is a demonstration of the ability to click down into the sectorchart for information.

FIG. 5 is a view of the traveller interface screen.

FIG. 6 is a view of some of the facilities available to the bookingprocess.

FIG. 7 shows some aspects of the reminder system associated with thetravel bookings and monitoring.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

With a move to online booking of travel and travel associated productsor services via web sites or internet connected applications rather thanbooking via a travel agent (whether online or not) there is anincreasing requirement to provide simpler booking for online bookers andtheir traveller(s).

Often different items are booked at different web sites, with each website having its own paradigm displaying information in its own way andfollowing its own booking routine. Even where a site such as an airlineprovides ancillary processes for booking other items, such as rentalcars or accommodation the interface for the rental car booking or theaccommodation booking may have little relationship to the airline travelbooking process.

Where the product or service is a lower volume item, for instance acruise booking or a river rapids trip, the interface is likely to beindividualistic and to require some time to appreciate and possibly moretime to locate the cost of the service. This results in potentialconfusion for the user.

Typically, as shown in FIG. 1 a user 101 at a desk PC 102 or mobilephone 103 may book via the internet 104 accommodation at such as a motel106 or a hotel 107. They may also book travel via such as an airline108, a train 109 or a rental car 110. Alternatively they may telephonevia phone 105 a travel agent 111 who may book via a corporate network112 the same services using either the same web sites or a traveldedicated application. In each case the travel typically involves one ormore searches to find travel and facilities which most nearly match theuser requirements.

A typical trip consists of various phases of Travel, Stay, Eat, Work,Play and Rest. Assuming a typical overseas trip the journey will consistof travelling to an airport, travel to a destination airport which mayinvolve transfers, travel from the destination airport to the actualdestination, and work or rest at the destination. Each of the phases ofTravel may have to be separately booked, as may the phases of Stay (asat an airline transfer lounge) Eat (at a restaurant) Rest (at a hotel)or Play (as at a gymnasium). Again typically each of these normallyrequires booking via a different web site or through a different webservice with each having a totally different interface, and much timecan be wasted coming to terms with each different interface. Worse isthat some of the phases may require web searches to determine whatfacilities exist at a certain destination, and where they are inrelation to other facilities, for instance the location of a gymrelative to a motel.

The present invention provides a user interface to a travel search andbooking engine which extracts or inserts parameters to guide the searchengine in a search for travel available from an origin to a destination.It is necessary that the search engine have access to web services andweb sites provided for booking travel or facilities used during traveland that it be capable of extracting information from these services orsites in order to present results of any search to a user in aconsistent manner. The search engine, in providing results, shouldweight them in regard to how closely they approach the originalrequirements. Since the requirements may be complex the originalrequirements may include some weighting parameters to assist in thefinal weighting.

Many travel related services provide API's (Application ProgrammingInterfaces) to access web services and receive information from theseservices. Some API's provide the ability to book via a web service.Necessarily where a site covers many different facilities (airlines,cruises, accommodation, car rental, game park visits, theme park visits)the API is complex and does not include all providers of thesefacilities. Additionally some of the services cover extremely nichemarkets and the work required to create a web service to access the APIis not inconsiderable. Examples of some publically available complextravel API's are those of Sabre, Amadeus, Serko and Travelport.

With the availability of the internet it is now feasible to search forand to extract information on facilities within a particular area orover a particular route with reasonable reliability and this incombination with the use of the more common API's allows a search engineto access enough data to return valid information allowing a choice offacilities and further to book such facilities where there is a bookingservice available or if the service is a web site it follows one of theestablished booking patterns.

In order to do this FIG. 2 shows the basics of a system for derivingdata, presenting the required information and booking as necessary. Auser or traveller with a device at 201 (laptop, PC, smartphone, tablet)having entered their user ID accesses a search interface 202 whichconnects to an internet connection 206 via a traffic interceptor 203.The search interface creates a search which accesses one or more travelsuppliers API's or web sites. Typically these will be air travelsuppliers because most travel searches start with an air travel search,and searches are made for the travel the traveller requires. The trafficinterceptor derives the search parameters from the through traffic andbegins to provide assistive parameters and information to help thetraveller in finding the best travel route and transport combination forthe desired trip. To do this it initially uses information from thetraveller profile 204 and/or the corporate profile 205 if the travelleris a corporate traveller. The data from these assists in refining whatis returned to the traveller from the search, for instance if an airlinesector no longer has seats in business class for that flight on that dayand the corporate policy is to always fly business class then thatflight on that sector, and possibly that airline for that route, willnot be returned as one of the choices for the traveller.

It can be seen that the user is abstracted from the actual search withthe result that complications which would complexify the search are muchreduced,

Connected to the traffic interceptor is a booking system provider 209which provides assistance by querying through the internet connection206 for information related to what the traveller is querying for. Thusfor a multi-sector air trip it may query transit items 216 whichconsists of searches specially crafted to provide information on transitconditions at the airport(s) through which the traveller would betransiting. Where the corporation or traveller profile shows that thetraveller has airline lounge access to one of the airline lounges atthat transit airport this information would be shown on an associativeinterface 208 of the display adjacent to the search interface sectionwhich shows search results.

Similarly the booking system provider 209 has backend connections toinformation which either relates to risks to which the traveller may beexposed or to information which will be used at the time any booking isfinally made. This may include warnings where the traveller istransiting or has a destination in a country or part of a country aboutwhich an avoidance warning has been issued, or about any specialculturally sensitive items such as a requirement for hair covering infemales.

The booking system provider may additionally call on a routemicro-mapper 210 which given the available information on the origin,travel waypoints and destination allows the micro-mapper to research theavailable routes and transport options available on these routes. Thusthe micro-mapper may map any available routes from the travellers knownhome address to the nearest international airport, from the airport to arequired waypoint, from there to the international airport nearest thedestination, from the airport to the nearest rail station, from thatrail station to the one closest to the destination, and the taxi routeto the destination.

In doing this the route micro-mapper consults rail route planner 222,water route planner 223, vehicle route planner 224 and air route planner225. These planners formulate routes as possible between the points itis initially given by a known “shortest route, shortest time” algorithmto arrive at segments of travel by particular travel methods. Inarriving at these routes the planners will consider information from therelevant user or corporate profiles for preferred airlines, taxi, rail,car or boat transport providers before it considers other possibilities.This information may include weightings for various factors used informulating the trip, for instance in corporate use a weighting for costmay be balanced against a weighting for the role of the traveller, toensure that the managing director does not travel economy class. Theinformation from the profiles may be used as a filter to restrict eitherthe search or the returned information to display only that which meetsthe profile requirements, for instance a wheelchair traveller may not beshown flights on aircraft where the centre aisle includes a wing sparobstruction.

Once having derived possible routes the booking system provider 209queries the appropriate service or web site at 214, 215, 217,218, 219for available transport closest to the required date and time until itfinds one or more routes with transport on those routes which will meetthe times required by the original input. These routes and time maydiffer from those located by the travellers initial search and wouldappear in the associative interface as suggestions. The traveller mayadopt one of these suggestions simply by clicking it, when it willreplace any solution for that sector or sectors of travel.

Besides booking travel, such as airline, rail or bus the traveller maybook a rental car at a waypoint or destination, the booking systemprovider 209 again interceding by providing a crafted search of vehicleproviders at 219 to produce suggestions in associative interface 208.Similarly accommodation may be searched and adopted by crafted searchesat 220 and recreational items by a search through item 221.

Sectors of travel, accommodation, etc may be adopted by the traveller asthe travel booking process advances, and such sectors may appear in astatus bar on the display.

When a trip is finally adopted in full the booking systems provider 209confirms that the expense parameters of the trip meet the requirementsof any corporate ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system 212, that anycorporate policies have been adhered to, that the traveller has beenadvised of any risks and has accepted them, and then books the varioussectors of the trip including any accommodation or any recreationalitems chosen by the traveller. It may at the same time update anyloyalty or reward schemes falling within the trip and expend or updateany traveller mobile wallets as necessary using backend connections 211.If this is a corporate trip any booked items which are seen by thesystem as personal are charged back to the traveller by the corporateERP system.

Once the trip is booked it creates and stores an itinerary at 213 aswell as loading it to any relevant device of the traveller. Thisitinerary will include reminders for specified events within the trip,such as hotel book-out times, airport travel reminder times, meetingtimes, etc. Other things which are loaded to the travellers device withthe itinerary are those items which will provide assistance on the trip,including an app for locating car spaces at airport parking, andremembering the parking space, storage of electronic boarding passes forthe airports, airport maps either as still images or as interactivemaps, directions on how to reach a hotel from an airport, how to transitfrom one part of an airport to another, storage of bag tag details,capture of receipt details for corporate proof of purchase.

The system which created the bookings may also be used to access andreview these created bookings, typically by using the trip or servicereference of the individual sectors of a trip to query the serviceprovider. Equally it is possible to retrieve the details of a trip andmonitor the completion of each sector of a trip by querying the serviceprovider, again by a consistent interface.

The interface shown to the traveller for carrying out the search willalways be the same for a particular facet of a travel search, and theresults returned will always be in the same format as the booking systemprovider 209 intercedes and queries one or more web services andcollates the results as well as querying established web sites andscraping the results, returning an ordered list for the travellersviewing. In a similar manner the booking system provider may carry outan ancillary search at the travellers destination or waypoint foraccommodation or transport if this is indicated as being required andwill display results found in the associative interface 208. The processof querying web service API's is well known as is the process ofquerying a web site and extracting results from that query for furtherinterrogation or display. The booking system provider 209 systematicallydeals with the process of converting the information from the travellerinput interface to the disparate input interfaces of API's or web sites,and processing the information from the disparate results into astandard format for the traveller display interface.

Preferably the interface is based on display templates for each facet ofa travel search and for each set of results returned from a travelsearch. Such templates may be XML documents to allow consistency inbuilding them.

FIG. 3 demonstrates a possible manner in which travel data may bepresented to a traveller for acceptance before booking. As label 301indicates the travel is from Auckland New Zealand to Bendigo Australiaon the 23 Jul. 2014. The trip is presented broken into 5 sectors, 302,303, 304, 305, 306 each in a different travel environment. Boxes 307 and323 are bolded, representing the sole information besides the origin,destination and date originally entered by the user. Box 313 is bandedindicating that this data was present in the users or corporate profile.

Sector 1 (302) requires a departure 307 from the travellers home at0615. The traveller travels at 308 by Autocorp Taxis, chosen by priceand past reputation to arrive at Auckland international departures (309)at 0720, the time being arrived at from a likely maximum for travel fromthe travellers home at that time of the morning, as calculated from amapping utility.

Sector 2 (303) demonstrates the sector from arrival at Aucklanddepartures (310) through booking in (311) to flight Q3051 by 0730through to clearance at Customs and Emigration (312) after which thetraveller may retreat to Emirates lounge (313) until required to appearat the gate lounge (314) at 0815.

In Sector 3 (304) the traveller enters the flight at 0817 (315) andtakes seat 12A (316) taken as the travellers profile expressed apreference for a window seat. The aircraft is supposed to arrive inMelbourne at 0940 local time (317) and the traveller may then transitimmigration and customs.

Sector 4 (305) covers the pickup of a rental car at 319 and a subsequentdeparture to Geelong (320) at an estimated time of 1020. This timeincludes an exigency of 20 minutes to allow for consistent lateness inthe arrival of the airline on this route in this season.

Sector 5 (306) includes at 321 the arrival of the traveller at Geelong,an arrival at the firm being visited (322) at 1115 for a meeting (323)at 1120. After the meeting (324) the traveller departs Bendigo forwhatever sector is next.

While the trip shown covers only five sectors of travel the system iscapable of planning a complete itinerary of many sectors which includestravel by any mix of air, sea, rail, vehicle with accommodationinterspersed at waypoints or the final destination, booking forrestaurants made at waypoints or the final destination, recreationalbookings at any place.

FIG. 4 shows the ability to dig deeper into the data of a listed route,accessible by JSON on the web listing of the sectorised route. Clickingon the content of FIG. 3 box 308 produces at 401 the booking informationfor the trip with Autocorp Taxis. Clicking this information produces box402, the list of the highest rated options for the taxi ride and therates of the firms concerned. Similarly clicking box 311 produces thetrip information for Flight Q3051 at 403 and clicking that informationprovides at 404 the list of highest rated flight options for thatportion of the trip. In turn clicking on these flights provides at 405,406 further information on the flights and the booking system providersestimation of the facilities.

FIG. 5 Shows a possible version of the user interface in which part 501provides the user search interface, part 502 a message interface, mainlyfor risk warnings, part 503 an associative interface for informationassociated with whatever search the user is currently carrying out andpart 504 a status bar carrying information on what sectors of travelrelated to this search have been adopted by the user.

Search interface 501 contains a selection menu 505 for a service, withmutable input boxes 506 providing information relative to the menuchoice. Once information is entered in the input boxes a Search button508 may be clicked to perform a search producing selectable results inresult box 507.

The status bar may carry an abbreviated version of the sector display ofFIG. 3, showing the full display if clicked.

FIG. 6 more clearly delineates the items found in the backendconnections of FIG. 2 item 211. As seen in FIG. 6 the items form acollection 601 which includes booking related items 602 such as theintegration 603 with the corporate ERP system, the use of Google Wallet604 as a payment method and the use of pre-trip authorisation 605 withwhichever service provider booking is eventually carried out with. Alsoincluded are the ability to change bookings (606) including theitinerary reminders (607) to accept Google Offers 608 which offersavings in the trip, and to implement at 609 pre or post ticketingchanges.

The ability to view communications 610 from such as media 611 created bybooking providers direct to the traveller can be allowed for, and otherdocumentation from available services can be provided at 612.

Payments 613 while on the trip can be provided from expense accounts 614for that purpose or by paying by NFC (Near Field Contact) payments 615from dedicated accounts. The ability also exists to include informationfrom profiles 616 other than the individual and corporate profilesinternally held, such as Google+ profiles or profiles held on socialservices such as Facebook, or with travel booking sites. Typicallyindividual travel profiles include the usual name, address, passportnumber, citizenship, aircraft meal preferences and seat preferences.Corporate profiles include such things as fare or accommodation levels,cost centre information, role information. The present system proposesto include profiles from social or other useful sites which thetraveller belongs to as well as considerably increased personal orcompany data sufficient to assist to a greater extent in booking travel.

During the search for trip information other information may be offeredat 619 including duty of care information from the corporate database,information on groups, resources or crew 621 if the trip forms part of abulk personnel booking or information from other travel integrationservices at 622. Messages 623 relating to the trip itself may be derivedfrom Google Alerts 624 on newsworthy matters and airline or countryoriginated alerts 625. Similar sources may also provide video allowingnavigation through airports used in the trip at 626 and alsoapplications for tracking tags on luggage at 627.

FIG. 7 shows some aspects of the reminder system 213 which is associatedwith the itinerary as stored on the travellers device. The remindersystem on the device (“Concierge”) is shown as a smartphone applicationwith a base menu at 701 which includes entry to trips at 705, the usersprofile at 706, callable assistance at 707 and a concierge service at708.

Viewing the contents of the trips item 705 at 702 shows a listing ofexisting trips and associated items, from air trips at 709, 710, 711 toa conference 711 to be held at several venues. Clicking on theconference item 711 brings up the listing 703 which includes at 713 theinitial conference data, and below the information for one of theflights associated with the conference.

The flight at 715 is on the date at 714 and has departure information incolumn 716 and arrival information in column 717. The item 718 in thedeparture column provides clickable access to either a viewable map orto a video of the airport terminal. In the departure column 717 are anaccess to an airport map 719 and access to details 720 on a rental carto be picked up at the destination. These details are further shown initem 704 with the pickup date at 721, the item name at 722, the pickupdata column at 723, the drop off data in column 724 and the rentalcompany and relevant contact data at 729. Notable are the clickable pickup map 725, drop off map 726 and pick up and drop off city maps 727 and728.

The application generates reminders for the times appearing in theConcierge entries, as found necessary.

While FIG. 7 shows information only for a flight and car associated tripclearly the Concierge is adaptable to use for accommodation (book-intimes, book out times, booking references, discounts, company costcentre reference, etc.). Similarly because the mobile has access toother online services it may provide predictive and/or monitoringrecommendations for delays, traffic issues, late arrivals, accidents,amended schedules, etc.

VARIATIONS

It is to be understood that even though numerous characteristics andadvantages of the various embodiments of the present invention have beenset forth in the foregoing description, together with details of thestructure and functioning of various embodiments of the invention, thisdisclosure is illustrative only, and changes may be made in detail solong as the functioning of the invention is not adversely affected.

For instance while the invention is described in relation to the use ofairline travel with associated accommodation it may equally well applyto booking travel, playing ground seats and accommodation for footballfanatics to a series of games at different venues.

Similarly while the system is described as a travel booking system itmay equally be used to manage and review or monitor existing bookingsfor a traveller or corporate entity.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

The method of the invention is used in the derivation, transfer,correlation and presentation of data to aid in the process of bookingtravel by providing a traveller with a travel booking interface which isconsistent in the input and presentation of the data no matter howderived. This results in the normalised display of information about andrelating to the travel in a form which is consistent but which allowseasy investigation in depth of the travel results and is therefore timesaving for the traveller. The present invention is thereforeindustrially applicable.

What we claim is:
 1. A travel booking system for booking a trip by atraveller, the travel booking system providing to the user a consistentinterface for receiving the travel phases of the travel origin, thetravel destination, any required waypoints between the two, any requiredfacilities at travel origin, at travel waypoints, during travel betweentravel waypoints or at travel destination and any time requirements ofthe travel phases; the travel booking system responding to the travelphases and time and facility requirements to query travel providershaving disparate interfaces and outputs and to provide at least onesolution to each phase of travel presenting to the user the at least onesolution for each phase in a consistent interface.
 2. A travel bookingsystem for booking a trip by a traveller as claimed in claim 1 whereinthe travel booking system has access to a traveller profile identifyingestablished traveller requirements for different required facilities andprovides these as a filter to the booking process.
 3. A travel bookingsystem for booking a trip by a traveller as claimed in claim 1 whereinwhere the user is a corporate user the travel booking system has accessto a corporate profile establishing corporate requirements for differentrequired facilities and provides these as a filter to the bookingprocess.
 4. A travel booking system for receiving a travel requestincluding information on travel origins, travel destination, travelwaypoints; facilities required at origin, waypoints or destinations andany required times at origin, destination or waypoints, the travelbooking system determining solutions for each phase of the travel bysearching disparate internet connected sites, receiving solution datafrom the disparate internet connected sites, resolving the data receivedfrom the disparate sites to a consistent format and outputting the datain a consistent format as one or more solutions to the travel request.5. A travel booking system for booking a trip by a traveller as claimedin claim 4 wherein each of the travel requests includes a weighting foreach of the requirements, the weighting determining the relevance ofeach requirement in the ordering of the solutions.
 6. Travel bookingequipment programmed to receive a travel request from a user includinginformation on travel origins, travel destination, any travel waypoints;any facilities required at origin, waypoints or destinations and anyrequired specific times at origin, destination or waypoints, the travelbooking equipment program determining solutions for each phase of thetravel by searching disparate internet connected sites, receivingsolution data from the disparate internet connected sites, resolving thedata received from the disparate sites to a consistent format andoutputting the data in a consistent format to the user as one or moresolutions to the travel request.
 7. Travel booking equipment as claimedin claim 6 wherein any travel request information from the user isaugmented by profile information relevant to the travel request andstored in at least one profile store accessible to the travel bookingequipment.
 8. Travel booking equipment as claimed in claim 7 whereinprofile information relevant to the travel request is stored in at leastone individual traveller profile.
 9. Travel booking equipment as claimedin claim 8 wherein an individual traveller profile is stored in a socialsite profile.
 10. Travel booking equipment as claimed in claim 7 whereinprofile information is stored in a corporate profile.